


The Research Trip to Room 406 of Silas University Library

by Alsike



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: But totally, Canon Compliant, Crack, F/F, The Library, i love crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 14:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15317940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alsike/pseuds/Alsike
Summary: Carmilla needs a quote for a paper she's working on. Time to go to the library. Only, someone else is hogging the book she wants. And planning to steal it?How dare she!





	The Research Trip to Room 406 of Silas University Library

**Author's Note:**

> I dub this ship Carmilla Song.

When you're a immortal vampire with a grouchy, devil-may-care disposition, sometimes you dare to go to the library. Bored enough to work on her phenomenology paper for her 3rd philosophy degree, Carmilla remembered a line from a friend's essay back in her first degree. It had been a good line. She'd like to quote it. Only, the friend had never published that paper, nor finished his degree, and all of his drafts had been lost in a fire. In his third year he'd over-enthusiastically leapt off a building during a school wide grinders match to catch a stray ball and fell to his death.

However, there was one book in the library that might be able to get her the quotation she was looking for.

Against all sensible advice, she decided to go.

Honestly, she didn’t understand why everyone made such a fuss. It was just a library. All libraries were somewhat sentient. You couldn't have that many ideas in one place without it becoming a sort of brain.

Carmilla strode through the stacks, rolling her eyes at the venturesome mortal students running and screaming at completely innocuous phenomena. Rustling books, threatening computer displays and compact shelving slowly rolling in to squash you--they were really nothing to scream and flee in terror at.

At least not for a vampire.

However, there were a few places inside the library on Silas University's campus that were a tad dicey, even for Carmilla. As she worked her way up the rickety and swaying staircase above the lava pits, she grit her teeth and tried not to think of the grave. Being charred to a crisp over and over again in a lava pit until she finally got herself out was really not something she had a deep desire to experience.

She climbed the wall lined with razor sharp grips, swung over the bottomless pit that echoed with the screams of dying students, and headed down the hall to room 406.

To her surprise, it wasn't empty. A woman was standing in the center, over the grimoire of forgotten texts. She was flipping pages and . . . taking photos.

"You're not supposed to do that."

The woman glanced over, her throng of tawny curls tossing over her shoulder, and she smiled magnanimously. "Oh, tell me what, sweetie. There are usually so many things."

Carmilla crossed her arms. She wasn't going to enforce library rules. Anyone who thought she would was mistaking her for someone who cared. Sure, if you asked the book the wrong questions it would show you pages from books that didn't exist in this timestream, and having physical records of them could create a paradox that would destroy the universe.

Carmilla really couldn't care less.

"Do what you want. I need to look up a quotation though, so if you could hurry it up?"

"Ah," the woman made a moue. "I'm afraid that might be somewhat difficult. Because I'm not just planning on taking pictures." She dropped her voice into conspiratorial tones. "I'm going to steal the book."

"What?" She couldn't just steal the book. The library--

The room shook like an earthquake had hit it. Oh fuck, the library had heard her.

"You _idiot_! Tell it you were lying! You can't steal the grimoire. The library heard you."

"I know," the woman grinned. "What, do you think I'm a virgin at this?"

The woman scooped up the grimoire and stuffed it in her bag and then booked it towards the far door. A huge crack was splitting the floor, and Carmilla leapt away just as the hiss of gas from the pit below smoked up her ass. She took off after the strange woman--not _following_ her, just running in the same direction.

In the hall the creaks and sways and groans filled the air. The scent of brimstone was sour and foul in her nose. They hit the staircase. It was shaking and creaking, but it was the only way out. Yet the woman, when she hit the staircase, headed up instead of down.

"Wait! You're going the wrong way?"

"You think I'm going down into that? Oh sweetie." The woman flashed her a smile, and Carmilla's stomach lurched in an uncomfortably familiar way. She'd always had a thing for dismissive arrogance.

She bounded up the stairs like she was the immortal vampire, and Carmilla, who hated running, but was rather good at it, being a creature of the night, chased after her, for real this time. Her concern about what the library could do to her was far less than her curiosity about how on earth this woman thought she was going to escape.

She burst out of a trap door onto the roof, Carmilla only a few steps behind, and grasped a crenellation as the tower swayed like a snake, or like a stallion trying to buck her off.

"Who are you?" Carmilla yelled through the howling wind--wind created by the movement of the library through the air.

"Call me River, sweetie!"

"Why did you take the book?"

"It's a collector's item. I'm collecting it for my dear old friend Brax!"

"Look, I kind of need that book." Carmilla paced closer. "So I think I'm just going to--" she grabbed for it. River dodged.

Carmilla swore. "How can you dodge me? I'm a vampire goddammit."

River smirked. "Are you a curiosity too? Perhaps Brax could find a spot for you as well."

"I am _not!"_

The body of the library had transformed itself into a giant maw rising up to eat the top of the tower that they were perched on. River glanced up at the looming teeth, seeming unimpressed. Even Carmilla was a tiny bit impressed, and it couldn’t do anything permanent to her. River’s complete nonchalance was . . . annoyingly attractive.

"How the hell are you getting out of this?"

"Don't worry, sweetie. My ride should be here in three . . . two . . . one--"

And then a spaceship uncloaked above, the library's mouth flinched back, and Carmilla gaped up at the sudden beam of light that shot down from it, hitting River and glittering off her hair like she was some insane kind of angel.

Aliens weren't really the surprise. Silas had enough nonsense that visitors from another planet were just an ordinary Thursday. But something-- something about this woman was different from the world Carmilla was used to.

The word for it came.

It was the opposite of despair. The opposite of despair wasn't hope, Carmilla well knew--that was the quotation she had been looking for.

~The opposite of despair was _panache_.~

"Wait!"

River paused, giving her a sly glance with one inquiring eyebrow raised.

"Can I come with you?"

River tipped her head and twisted her lips in a considering moue. "I don't usually do companions, but . . . maybe this once."

She reached out her hand. Carmilla took it. And the beam of light turned them both into sparkles.

#

Any records of Carmilla's adventures in time and space have long been lost and forgotten. But some rumors surrounding the figure of River Song validate the occurrence of this incident. For one, the legends of the Snorkolax Legemen record that River Song's first wife was an immortal vampire.

So, you never know.

###


End file.
